New York Court of Appeals: Dismissal Required Where Prosecution Failed to Explain Repeated Requests for Post-Readiness Adjournment
by Sam Rutherford
The Court of Appeals of New York, the state’s highest court, held that the People violated a defendant’s statutory right to a speedy trial by filing a certificate of readiness and then appearing at several court dates to request a post-readiness adjournment (continuance) without any explanation for the delay.
Patrick Labate crashed into a parked police car in December 2017, and, as a result, was charged with reckless driving and related offenses. The People filed a certificate of readiness for trial shortly after his arraignment and reaffirmed their readiness for trial in a series of hearings leading up to a trial date set for September 5, 2018. However, on that day, the parties appeared in court, and the People stated that they were not ready to proceed to trial without explanation.
The trial court subsequently adjourned the case on three separate occasions, each time based on the People’s unexplained statement that they were not ready for trial. Labate moved to dismiss the charges against him, but the trial court denied the motion. He was subsequently convicted and appealed.
New York state law requires that defendants be brought to trial within certain periods of time based on the seriousness of the charged offense. N.Y. Crim. Proc. Law § 30.30. Because he was charged with a class A misdemeanor, Labate should have been tried within 90 days of his arraignment. N.Y. Crim. Proc. Law § 30.30[1][b]. Once the People file a certificate of readiness stating that they are prepared for trial, any subsequent request for adjournment must be explained. Otherwise, that period of delay is chargeable to the People and counts against the speedy trial clock. People v Brown, 68 N.E.3d 45 (N.Y. 2016).
In this case, the People filed a certificate of readiness and then appeared at three successive trial dates stating they were not ready for trial. No explanation was given at those hearings or at any point thereafter, despite invitation from the trial court to do so. As the Court of Appeals explained, “the People must, at some point, provide an explanation for their postreadiness adjournments and delay so that the Court can determine what portion of the delay is properly attributable to them.”
Because the People failed to comply with this requirement in Labate’s case, the Court held that the delay was attributable to the People, and Labate was therefore not bought to trial within the statutorily required time limit.
Accordingly, the Court reversed his conviction and dismissed the underlying indictment dismissed with prejudice. See: People v. Labate, 2024 N.Y. LEXIS 407 (2024).
Writer’s note: In 2019, New York enacted changes to N.Y. Crim. Proc. Law § 30.30. Although these amendments did not apply to Labate’s case, the Court of Appeals nonetheless noted that the amendments require the same result it reached in his case. According to the Court, “those amendments, restate in part, the same rule from Brown that we reaffirm today. As relevant here, the legislature amended portions of subdivision (4), which governs the periods of time to be excluded when calculating chargeable time to the People (see L 2019, ch 59, part KKK, § 4). Section 30.30 now provides that ‘[a]ny such exclusion when a statement of unreadiness has followed a statement of readiness made by the [P]eople must be evaluated by the court after inquiry on the record as to the reasons for the [P]eople’s unreadiness and shall only be approved upon a showing of sufficient supporting facts’ (CPL 30.30 [4] [g]).” Thus, the Labate decision remains good law even after the amendments.
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Related legal case
People v. Labate
| Year | 2024 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 2024 N.Y. LEXIS 407 (2024) |
| Level | State Supreme Court |
